What we learned as early blunder fuels Giants’ loss to Padres

What we learned as early blunder fuels Giants’ loss to Padres originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

BOX SCORE

SAN DIEGO — With Luis Arraez and Fernando Tatis Jr. on first and second to lead off the night at Petco Park, Jurickson Profar hit a high fly ball to right-center. It looked like Mason Black might get a chance to settle in — and then chaos ensued.

Arraez tagged and took third as Mike Yastrzemski’s throw was cut off by Tyler Fitzgerald, who tried to nab Tatis at second. That throw was whipped wide of Marco Luciano, and 26 Giants looked on helplessly. Because Yastrzemski was way over in center field, there was nothing anybody could do as the ball bounced into the corner. Tatis scored easily from second. He would have been able to score from La Jolla given how far the throw went.

When Manny Machado followed with a homer, the Giants were off to an embarrassing start. They managed to hang in there for the rest of the night and make it a somewhat normal game, but it was yet another loss, this time by the score of 5-1.

Machado later added a second homer to tie San Diego’s career record. It seems the best goal for the Giants this weekend at this point is just making sure the record-breaking blast doesn’t come when they’re on the field.

Here are the takeaways as the Giants fall to 69-73.

Up And Down

The night could not have gotten off to a worse start, but Black actually didn’t pitch poorly. After Machado’s first homer, he retired 13 of 15 during a stretch that included strikeouts of Machado, Tatis, Jake Cronenworth and Rookie of the Year frontrunner Jackson Merrill.

Black rode extra velocity, with his sinker up 1.2 mph and his slider up by more than three mph. He threw 14 pitches that touched 94 mph after doing it just 11 total times in his first five big league appearances. The extra couple of ticks seemed to be the difference, as Padres hitters repeatedly looked back at the plate after striking out.

Black is pitching in Robbie Ray’s rotation spot, but Ray might return before the end of the year. That shouldn’t impact Black, though. With Kyle Harrison now done for the year, he seems likely to finish out the season in the Giants rotation.

Opposite of Road Warriors

The Giants fell to 29-41 on the road, the third-worst winning percentage in the NL behind only the Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies. They entered the night ranked 15th in road OPS and 19th in road runs per game, but the real issue has been on the pitching side.

The staff has a 4.70 ERA away from Oracle Park, the fifth-worst mark in the majors. They have given up 32 runs in five games at Petco Park, which is a bit smaller than it used to be but still favors pitchers.

This isn’t just a one-year issue, too. The Giants were nine games above .500 at home last season but 13 under on the road. During the 81-81 season a year earlier, they were seven games under .500 away from home.

The “E” Is Looming

It’s a minor thing given all of the other problems they have, but this skid has accelerated the timeline for the Giants to be officially eliminated from postseason races. They’ve been at least eight games back of the Los Angeles Dodgers since the first day of June and even the most optimistic Giants fan should have given up on the division months ago, but they’ll officially be eliminated in the next week and possibly by the end of this weekend.

It’ll be a bit longer for the NL wild card race, although even the computers aren’t pretending anymore. The Giants have been at 0.0 percent in FanGraphs’ playoff odds for a few days. They’re 8 1/2 games behind the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets, who are tied for the third spot. They’re 11 1/2 back of the Padres, who all of a sudden look like the most dangerous team in the league. The numbers have gotten big in a hurry.